Internal Compliance Programs - Engaging With Others - Altria

In addition to monitoring the performance of our internal compliance programs and systems, we engage externally to share learnings from our compliance program, understand best practices in compliance and risk management and to seek external perspectives to inform the evolution of our programs.

• In 2011, Altria shared its experiences refreshing its Code of Conduct and developing an interactive online Code by participating in a compliance and ethics webinar titled: Living Our Code: How to get it off the wall and down the hall. A leading compliance and ethics consulting company facilitated the webinar and delivered it to more than 90 people. The purpose of the webinar was to share techniques on how to make a company’s Code of Conduct relate better to employees and position it as a resource, how to improve compliance dialogue through leader-led sessions and how to integrate education and communications activities into memorable and fun experiences.
• In 2011, Altria shared its Compliance & Integrity Program at a regional companies' Roundtable on Business Ethics: Best Practices.  The session included Altria’s overall compliance framework, how we connect the compliance program across our businesses and employees, how we establish a culture of compliance and how we measure results.
• In 2011, Altria partnered with Professor Andy Wicks, a Ruffin Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, to develop a compliance professional development session. During the case study-based session, the company compliance officers discussed compliance challenges experienced by several external companies and identified areas of consideration for 2012.
• Altria provided funding for a documentary called In Search of the Good Corporate Citizen. This award-winning program takes viewers beyond the headlines to show why some businesspeople take the ethical low road, and how the best business leaders steer their companies through today’s toughest ethics challenges. This documentary has appeared on Public Broadcasting Service stations across the United States and is also actively used in masters-level student programs and employee developmental programs. Altria, along with the documentary’s producer, shared the documentary at various conferences (2010 & 2011 - The Conference Board, 2009 - Ethics & Compliance Officer Association and Net Impact Conference).